


Wasteland, Baby!

by cherie_morte



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Sam Winchester Wants a Dog, Sharing a Bed, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:48:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21997777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherie_morte/pseuds/cherie_morte
Summary: Whether God successfully ended the world or not is just a matter of perspective. Dean knows where he stands on the issue, but how Sam feels about it, he’s not so sure.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 33
Kudos: 186
Collections: 2019 Supernatural & CWRPF Holiday Exchange, SPN J2 Xmas Exchange





	Wasteland, Baby!

**Author's Note:**

> To my beloved baby sloth on her birthday, which it totally still is in many parts of the world, don't @ me. I was so excited to receive you as my XMAS assignment this year and then THE PANIC SET IN. I was too inspired??? I had 300 different things I was going to write for this at different points between assignments going out and now, so I hope I landed on the right thing. I kind of went off this prompt: "Post-they-drove-away-into-sunset canon ending (with a few years' timeskip, maybe?), Sam and Dean working a classic case, staying at a classic motel, and having breakfast in a classic diner. Nostalgia and good classic codependency galore. Could be tied in with S3's Christmas special, contrasting how different their lives are—and how exactly the same. Maybe some hurt/comfort for flavor?" but I also used a lot of the ideas you mentioned wanting in a story for the piece of your art that I used as inspiration for it. And then I didn't do it EXACTLY like you said for either of those so, I don't know. *hands* I also threw in a few of your likes: "Hurt/comfort, bedsharing, protective brothers, apocalypse AUs,  
> you-and-me-against-the-world brothers." I really, really, really hope you like it. I love you so much more than words can even express and nothing would make me happier than if this gift brings you even just an hour or so of happiness.
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY since I missed Christmas and all shhhhh just let it happen.
> 
> (Thank you also to my very last minute beta [dugindeep](https://twitter.com/iwinsoiwin) for always delivering the honest bad news I am needing to hear.)

“Do you ever think maybe this is Heaven?”

Sam asks it out of the blue as they’re walking down a cracked road somewhere between what used to be Philadelphia and what still passes for New York City.

Dean glances at his brother, then throws a look down the side of the overpass. There’s a Wendy’s directly below them with its own sign crashed through the roof. Half of Wendy’s head is cracked, so all you can see is the bottom of her little smile beaming up at the highway she was designed to lure travelers away from. It should probably creep Dean right out, but frankly, all he can think right now is that he could really go for a burger.

“Wouldn’t you say it’s kind of the opposite?” Dean asks, watching as a group of former-people meander aimlessly through the abandoned fast food chain’s parking lot. “It’s an apocalyptic zombie wasteland.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Sam agrees, a little put out. “Hell wasn’t like this, though. And it would kind of make sense, right? If we died and just didn’t know it?”

“Died when?” Dean asks, laughing off the suggestion. “Fighting God? He strike you as the kind of guy who sends people to Heaven for trying to kill Him?”

“Maybe He doesn’t get final say,” Sam reasons. “Michael runs the show up there these days. What if Adam put in a good word for us?”

“He does seem to listen to the kid.” Dean drops it at that, because the whole thing still makes his skin crawl. It’s not his Michael. That sonofabitch was dead a long time before the world was. But at the same time, yeah, it is. Their half-brother choosing to stay with the archangel, choosing to stay _possessed_ by him—it’s not something that’ll ever make sense to Dean, no matter how much he tries putting himself in Adam’s shoes.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—” Sam hesitates as he realizes he triggered something in Dean and there’s not a good way to apologize for that without dragging it on. “Forget it, it was just a thought.”

Dean shrugs and gestures below. “It’s crawling with lizards down there. This isn’t our exit, is it?”

Sam looks guilty and points to a small blue-bricked building sandwiched between a former Subway and McDonald’s. “I’m meeting the guy there.”

“What is that, a garage?” Dean shields his eyes from the sun and squints at the sign out front of the shop, which is advertising a free oil change with every inspection. “Sam, there’s no way there’s anyone human still living down there. He must have been turned by now.”

“I talked to him on the radio this morning,” Sam tells him. “You can stay up here.”

Dean scoffs. “Oh sure, I’ll take a balcony seat to watch a pack of lizards eat you alive.”

“I’ll be careful,” Sam promises. “But I have to…this was the deal I made with him. He’s gonna give me what I came for, but first I gotta—”

“Hell no!” Dean yells. “You didn’t mention that. You still haven’t even told me what we’re here for and I’m supposed to let you go down there by yourself for it?”

Sam nods, infuriatingly calm, and touches the end of Dean’s gun before patting his cheek. “Don’t you fire. Not for anything, you hear?”

“I hate this,” Dean says.

“I know,” Sam replies, smiling apologetically. “Promise me you won’t fire.”

Grudgingly, Dean nods and Sam takes his hand off Dean’s face, swallowing hard like he’s steeling himself. 

Sam turns then and starts making his way down the ramp of exit 67A, which the sign says goes to some New Jersey suburb called Thistleton. Dean doesn’t get to argue, but he knows himself better than to think he’ll be able to keep his finger off the trigger at a sniper’s angle, so he follows his brother, slow enough to be sure Sam has a considerable lead.

It takes willpower to lag behind, to let Sam do the dangerous thing, but then everything these days is mostly about Dean batting down his instincts. He wants to look away, but he doesn’t.

As soon as Sam reaches ground level, he starts making noise. Dean is still high up enough that he can see the quick response from the lizards he’d been tracking, how in the blink of an eye they all stop wandering in random patterns and unite as they move in one direction. They can hear something alive, and that means dinner.

“Come on, you ugly bastards,” Sam is screaming. “I’m over here.”

Once upon a time, Dean thought croats were fast, but Chuck’s zombies are bigger and better than the knockoffs his kids made. Lizards weren’t named for how they move, but they do right by the label in more than just their appearance. They’re slow and lazy and confused until they have a purpose, and then they speed headfirst toward whatever it is with no thought except to consume. Right now, Sam is their purpose.

He sees Sam brace himself, eyes closed and face turning away as the pack reaches him. Dean’s seen that look too many times in his life. It’s still better somehow than the next thing he watches, which is his brother disappearing as the zombies swarm him. There’s about thirty of them and they all get their bites in as Sam screams, not goading them now but because the pain is too much to stay quiet through.

Dean hangs back, gritting his teeth, his finger over the trigger of a gun he keeps trained on the ground. He doesn’t fire. They have his brother for dinner. And Dean doesn’t fire.

_______________________________________________________________

“Well, that sucked,” Sam says, slouching against the wall as Dean dresses his wounds. He waits a beat, maybe for Dean to laugh at his understatement. Dean doesn’t laugh. Instead, Dean presses an alcohol-soaked rag against Sam’s neck and tries not to think about another time he just stood there while monsters bit out his brother’s throat, and how Sam would have stayed dead for all the good Dean did him, if not for _Lucifer_ of all people.

“C’mon, don’t be pissed at me,” Sam teases, still trying to break Dean’s quiet spell. “You won’t be mad when you see what I did it for.”

Sam’s body is more scar tissue than skin nowadays. He always had his fair share—hell, they both did, but now it’s less a result of hunting. Dean misses the days when every mark told a different story. These are all the same. Indentations of blunt human teeth, zigzagging over almost every inch of his brother, and most of them avoidable.

“I’m fine,” Sam says defiantly. “You knew I would be.”

He hisses when Dean pushes down too hard on a cut he’s wiping, and Dean gives him a pointed look. Some lizards are farther gone than others, and it shows. Most of Sam’s cuts are shallow, just hardly broke the surface before his blood took hold, but some lizards tear pieces off him when they bite in. There’s no science as far as Dean can tell to how fast or how complete the change is. Time of exposure is definitely a factor, but willpower seems to play into it, too.

The first time Sam got bit, they sat and waited for him to change for days, assuming he was just a stubborn sonofabitch and it was taking longer for the symptoms to start. After a week, they figured he must be immune, same as with the croatoan virus. It made sense that this would be a similar infection, and that explained that.

It wasn’t until they hunted down the lizard that bit him that they realized the truth was a little more complicated.

She was still in the same house they’d been scavenging when they stumbled upon her, when she’d surprised them, when her bite should have been the end of Sam. But as soon as Dean pointed his gun at her, prepared to blow her scaly face off, that’s when shit got weird.

Half of her was covered in regular human skin, a dark brown shade that matched the woman smiling in the pictures hanging on the house’s walls. The side that still showed that she was ever a lizard was patchy, like the scales were falling off. The reverse of how it looks when the disease starts to set in. And then, she spoke. She thanked them. Lizards can’t talk, don’t have enough human in them left to show gratitude. Sam didn’t just survive her, he cured her.

In classic Sammy fashion, he immediately started experimenting to try to understand how and why he was able to cure lizards when every other person ever bit by one was either table scraps or turned before the next day. They learned that the people Sam cures can’t be re-infected, but their blood doesn’t have the same rejuvenating effects as his. They figured out that the same thing that gave Sam the power to kill God was what made him able to undo the monsters left behind.

Of course when Chuck designed a virus that would infect anything, from ants to angels, He made sure it couldn’t get Him. And it was just like Him to make Himself the cure, to ensure that anyone who got saved when all was said and done knew who to worship for it. He hadn’t planned on that bullet wound transferring His power to Sam more and more the longer they were connected. It’s safe to say He would have killed Sam right then and there if He’d been as all-knowing as He liked to think. Lucky for them, Chuck had let Sam and Dean live, hoping for an amusing show, and He got what was coming to Him.

Less fortunate is the fact that Sam’s lingering God powers don’t come with actually being God. He feels pain. He can’t seem to lose enough blood to die from it, but he sure gets the anemia, the pale skin, the dark bags under his eyes, the near constant exhaustion. There aren’t angels left for healing, which brings Dean back to the crummy motel room he’s sitting in, stitching up the split in his brother’s wrist where something that’s now some _one_ chomped down nearly to the bone and listening to Sam try to get him to lighten up because _it’s not a big deal_.

“I told you not to come,” Sam says. “You’re the one who insisted.”

“Lizards aren’t the only thing out there,” Dean reminds him. “There’s still ghosts and werewolves and _people_. Just because the disease can’t kill you doesn’t mean it’s safe to go off by yourself.”

“Safer for me than it is for you,” Sam mutters.

Dean takes a long sip of the whiskey he’d been using as disinfectant and wipes the back of his hand over his mouth as he slams it down on the flimsy table. The sound makes Sam flinch, which Dean feels a little bad about, until he remembers that Sam can go fuck himself.

“You know that’s not true,” is all he says as he stands and faces away from Sam.

Miracles like Sam don’t exist without word spreading.

That’s always been something Dean feared, how fast the whispers made it from one Gordon Walker to the next, but these days it’s considered a perk to roll with the Chosen One. People spend everything that still has value in the brave new world’s busted economy to track Sam down. 

They call him the Chameleon. Bring him your lizards and he’ll change them back into the people you lost. They worship him for this. Some call him God. Dean calls him something much bigger than that; Dean calls him brother.

If he wanted, Sam could have rebuilt the world in his image after wasting Chuck. He could be the head of a hippie commune the size of California, full of loyal converts, with every luxury that still exists brought to him on a silver platter. Plenty of folks would kill to be his right hand, ready to trade their influence with Sam for favors.

Instead, Sam chooses to ride shotgun with Dean, curing the lizards they stumble on, hunting the monsters they can’t save, sleeping in trashy motels that already stunk before everything else did.

There are people who see this as selfishness. People who think a gift like Sam’s should be pinned down, that Sam should spend every moment of everyday available to be bitten and drained and used to fix other people’s problems. There are people who have tried to kidnap him, tried to force that life on him, and who fancied themselves heroes for doing it. Dean still gets to fire his gun from time to time.

Sam is valuable, as valuable as he always has been to Dean, but now everyone else sees it, too. There’s no one in the world who should feel less safe wandering off unprotected than Sam Winchester.

“Whatever, you’re all patched up now, so you can go out and risk your life again tomorrow.”

“I saved them,” Sam whispers behind him. His voice is small and sad, and it cuts right through how angry and worried Dean is. That’s what he raised his little brother to do. This is who they were both supposed to be. Kinda shitty to hold it against him now. “Doesn’t that matter at all?”

“Of course it matters,” Dean says, his voice calmer than before, and he turns so Sam can see his expression. “Of course you should use this to help people, but why did it have to be like that? Why can’t we do it in smaller numbers, so you have time to recover? Fuck, Sam, it was a feeding frenzy. Do you have any idea what it feels like to just stand there and watch—?”

“I don’t,” Sam admits. He waits for a beat, thinking over what he’s gonna say, and in that Sam way of his, when he does speak, he says exactly the right thing. He puts it in the terms Dad would have, and Dean’s flash of anger has no hope of standing up against the calm, compassionate logic he lays out. “The man who hired me? His wife and son were in that swarm. She was a social worker before the world broke. The kid was the best center-fielder on his little league team. They were people, Dean. He loved them. Now they’re people again.”

“Alright,” he says, taking a seat at the end of one of the beds across from Sam. “Okay, Sammy, I’m sorry I was upset.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Sam tells him. “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you, but it’s worth it.” He smiles almost shyly and nods his head at the box sitting on the floor by the door. “Besides, aren’t you even a little curious what’s in there?”

He rolls his eyes. “I was a little distracted trying to keep your arm attached.”

“Go open it,” Sam says, smiling as he rests his head against the wall. “It’s for you.”

Dean lifts the box and places it on the bed before opening it, and as he watches, Sam says, “Merry Christmas.”

Laughing, Dean asks, “What makes you think it’s Christmas?”

The weather since God tried to roast the planet has been balmy pretty much anywhere you go and if there’s someone out there who decided to prioritize updating their calendar while the world was ending, Dean hasn’t met them yet. Could be December or July, and Dean’s lost track completely.

“I dunno,” Sam says, grinning. “We haven’t done Christmas since killing God and I think it’s been more than a year, so it stands to reason that I owe you a present. Could be for your birthday if you’d prefer that. You’re _definitely_ getting older.”

“Can it,” Dean tells him. “We aren’t all Benjamin Button.”

Slowly, Sam lifts himself to his feet and begins to limp to Dean’s side. It’s true that Sam seemed to be aging backwards for a while there, his hair growing in thicker, the grays at his temples going dark again. More God stuff, probably. It stopped as soon as Chuck died, but it left Sam frozen younger than he was when it started. Dean’s beard has white streaks these days when he lets it grow out, but, on the other hand, he doesn’t look like he hasn’t slept in three years.

“Well?” Sam asks, unable to hide the excitement in his face as Dean finally forces the box open and looks inside. “What do you think?”

Dean’s breath leaves him as he touches the cool metal and it takes a long moment to really process what’s in front of him.

“Is it the wrong part? I thought I’d written it down right, but you know me and cars.”

“It’s the right part,” Dean says. That’s all he says, because if he says more he might cry, and if he cries over a Christmas gift from his brother, he is never going to know peace again.

“You can fix the impala now,” Sam tells him, lightly touching his elbow. “We’ll be safer when we aren’t traveling on foot.”

“How on Earth did you…?” Dean licks his lips, shaking his head. Vintage car parts were hard enough and expensive enough to find before the apocalypse. When she’d broken down three months ago, Dean had figured it was actually going to be the end of his baby.

“I guess the only thing rarer than that,” Sam points into the box, “is someone who can cure lizards.”

“You ever do something that dangerous for a goddamn car part again and I’ll kill you, am I clear?”

“So, does that mean you don’t like your Christmas pre—?”

Dean turns, grabbing his brother and pulling him into a tight hug.

“Ow,” says Sam, and Dean laughs as he lightens his hold, easing the pressure on Sam’s freshly wrapped wounds.

_______________________________________________________________

They set out early the next morning, because sunlight is in short supply these days. Come to think of it, maybe it _is_ December. Most places, even metropolitan ones, don’t have their power supply back yet, so streetlights have been replaced with bonfires, and night travel is a no-go unless you’re one of the fortunate few who still have a functioning car and enough connections to keep it gassed. Dean’s happy for the early wake-up call because it means he’s finally on the road to rejoining that distinguished club.

It’s been months since either of them had any direction; they’ve been walking where their feet take them, not unlike the lizards they’ve encountered, until Sam started talking about needing to pick something up in New Jersey.

Now, they both have a clear destination. The Impala gave up the ghost outside a farm in northern Kentucky. It’ll take weeks to get back there, and plenty of days of work to get her running again. Dean’s playing it cool, but it’s taking a lot to check his excitement. Most of him just wants to start sprinting down the road, as if he could make it the whole way in one day if he pushes himself enough.

Sam is infuriatingly calm about the whole thing, taking steady, even steps behind him, stopping to rest every few hours, and saying annoying little brother shit like, _“you’re going to die before we get there if you don’t sit down and breathe for a while.”_

They hit jackpot around noon when they find a Wawa just off the highway they’re walking on that hasn’t been raided yet, with no lizards anywhere to contend with. Dean tries not to think about the _why_ when they stumble on places with no signs of life left—Chuck didn’t finish what He started, but He evaporated more than enough to bring the world to a screeching halt before Sam finished him off.

For now, it’s a lucky break. There’s more canned food and bottled water here than they can carry, and stocking up is just the right way to start a long journey like the one they’ve got ahead of them. They’ll be able to keep moving longer now that they won’t be worrying about supplies.

Dean works on packing as much as they can hold into their bags, and Sam wanders off after a few attempts at helping. He’s no good at duffle Tetris and after a lifetime spent arguing over whether or not he did a good enough job fitting things in and accusing Dean of taking the whole thing too seriously, Sam has learned to step aside and let the master work.

In today’s case, he mumbles something about needing to take a piss and disappears for so long that Dean finishes working and looks around only to realize Sam still isn’t back.

The usual panic sets in as Dean begins to imagine all the ways this could have gone wrong, but he reminds himself that Sam is a big boy, a more than competent hunter, and there’s no need to worry before there are any signs something is wrong.

That’s a mantra he keeps repeating to himself once he gets outside and can’t see Sam in any direction. He opens his mouth to yell Sam’s name, remembers that’s just about the best way to get them both in trouble, and instead swallows down on his worry and tries to quiet the pounding of his heart. If he can’t see Sam, his next best chance is to hear a clue of which direction to go looking for him.

He doesn’t have to listen for long. There’s a loud yip somewhere behind him, and when Dean circles the gas station, he finds Sam, who is neither in trouble nor alone. Wiggling in Sam’s massive hands is something that appears to be a very hyper potato.

Sam laughs as he holds the little dog up and gets his face licked for his trouble.

“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?” Sam asks the potato, and it gives another series of those high-pitched yips to agree with him. Dean’s head hurts already. “Who’s the goodest girl in the whole world?”

Dean frames Sam with his fingers as if he’s recording the moment and announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, tremble as you behold Sam Winchester, slayer of God, feared hunter, zombie wrangler. Let his intimidating demeanor be a warning to all.”

Sam laughs, but he looks a little guilty too as he realizes Dean has seen the moment. He tucks the little lump of brown fur down against his chest and says, “Sorry I wandered off, man. I heard her cries and wanted to make sure it wasn’t a threat.”

“Yeah, she looks terrifying,” Dean says, raising an eyebrow. “Surprised you were able to handle yourself.”

“Bite me,” Sam tells him. He sets the dog down on the ground. “She’s a puppy. She was just born.”

“I’m relieved the apocalypse hasn’t dulled your deduction skills,” replies Dean.

“Can you believe that? A tiny, healthy new born puppy?” Sam adds, looking up and smiling at Dean. Whatever expression is on Dean’s face must not impress Sam very much, because he explains, “I don’t think we’ve seen anything that was _born_ since Judgement Day. If Chuck had His way, this whole universe would have died. Instead, life is going on. She was born because of us, Dean.”

Dean’s chest feels like it might damn well explode as he sees the small hope blossoming in his brother’s face. Only Sam could find things like that in this dumpy hellscape God left behind, where he gets torn apart on a semi-regular basis just to try to save some speck of what still passes as the human race. He’s smiling over a puppy being born like it’s the miracle of creation writ large, and Dean loves him so much he thinks one day he’s gonna choke on it.

Then Sam’s expression drops as something gloomy passes over it, and he looks around. “I wonder where her mother is. Or the rest of the litter. She’ll die out here alone.”

Dean clears his throat and knows he’s gonna regret this as he says, “Not if you take care of her.”

Sam laughs instinctively, then looks confused after a beat. “You hate dogs.”

“Don’t have to tell me.” Dean watches the potato as it waddles around Sam’s feet, tripping as it tries to climb them. “But you love them.”

“It’s not easy to keep a puppy alive without its mother,” Sam explains. “She would slow us way down.”

“Impala’s not going anywhere without this,” Dean says, patting the bag holding the part Sam gave him yesterday. “You have anywhere to be?”

“What about when we get there?” Sam asks. “You gonna let her ride around in the car with us? What about the rule—?”

“Are you trying to talk me out of this, or what?”

Sam’s eyes get all big and wet and he says, “You mean it? You’d really let me have her?”

“Merry Christmas,” Dean says as he turns back toward the road. “To both of you bitches.”

_______________________________________________________________

“You figure out a name for her yet?” Dean asks, mostly out of boredom. He doesn’t especially care what Sam calls it.

All Sam has done since yesterday is take care of his new pet. It needs to be fed every few hours. It can’t walk so far on its little legs. Dean is pretty sure Sam has talked to it more than to him since they started walking this morning. That furry potato has stolen all of Sam’s attention. Not that he’s jealous. Obviously Dean isn’t jealous of a puppy.

The dog is tucked into Sam’s jacket—it needs help regulating its temperature, apparently—and Sam is laughing as it licks his chest. Good work if you can get it. Alright, so maybe Dean’s a little jealous.

“I was thinking Atom,” Sam says, scratching under the dog’s chin with one finger.

“Like our brother?” Dean frowns. “Isn’t that a boy’s name?”

“No, not Adam,” Sam clarifies. “Well, a little bit. Like a play on it? Adam was the first man and she’s the first born in this version of the world, but also because atoms are the building blocks for everything else, you know? Like, in physics—”

“Spare me the science lesson, Bill Nye,” Dean interrupts. “Name your dog whatever you want.”

“I like Atom,” Sam insists. He smiles down at the dog and puts on a slightly higher tone of voice, “What do you think of that, girl? You wanna be my little Atom?”

Dean rolls his eyes and soldiers on, wishing there was something more interesting to look at off the side of the road in Pennsylvania.

Apparently, Chuck’s shitty, cliché writing didn’t die out with Him, because just as Dean’s thinking that he could stand a little more excitement in his day, Sam stops in the middle of the road and when their eyes meet, fear is palpable in his brother’s expression. Dean hears it, too. A low rumble, far away but getting closer. _Be careful what you wish for_ is the name of this chapter.

“It can’t be them,” Sam says. “What are the chances?”

“What are the chances there are other bike gangs we just so happen to stumble on?” Dean asks. “And not the one that’s looking for us?”

Sam swallows hard but doesn’t argue. They’re both too well-trained to spend precious moments bickering over whether something is about to be the worst-case scenario instead of preparing for it. “Alright, what’s our plan, then?”

“Too late to hide?” Dean does a quick check and, yeah, there’s nowhere they can get to for miles that isn’t wide open. “If we’re at least off the road—”

“Last exit was miles ago and the next one isn’t for two,” Sam says.

Sam is second-to-none when it comes to keeping track of things like that, so Dean doesn’t question it. There’s really only one thing left. He drops his duffle to the floor and grabs the barrel of the gun strapped to his back, pulling it around.

“We end this.” Dean hefts his gun up, trained on the road as the dots begin to appear along the horizon. “We stand and fight and we get them off our back once and for all.”

“There are more of them,” Sam reminds him.

Dean dismisses that with a huff. “We’re better.”

“They’ll kill you,” Sam says.

“Not if I kill them first.” Dean sees his brother’s hesitation and lets go of his own gun to take Sam’s hand and force it onto his holster. “I don’t care if they’re people, Sam. They aren’t going to give us another choice.”

Sam pouts but he does as directed, zipping the dog as safely into his jacket as possible to free up his hands and pulling his gun from where he keeps it hidden under his long shirt.

By the time Sam is combat ready, the Hive is buzzing around them. They circle Sam and Dean with their bikes and stop once they’re surrounded.

The first person to step off their motorcycle is a small, middle-aged woman who removes her helmet to reveal short black hair and a sweet, round face. She’s good-looking enough that Dean wandered into that wasp’s nest more than a few times, back when the world had only recently been unmade and it seemed like she and her gang were actually doing some good. He’s since learned that she’s much, much more dangerous than she appears.

“Sam,” she says, smiling at him before throwing her attention to Dean. “Mmm, and Dean. I sure have missed you.”

“Feeling’s not mutual, Roni,” Dean tells her.

“I did get the sense you might be trying to avoid me,” she says, feigning sadness. “And after all those good nights we spent together. Kinda makes a girl feel cheap.”

“Where’s the rest of the Hive?” Sam asks. “Only six of you today?”

“We split up to find you boys,” she tells him. “Cover more ground that way. But don’t worry, Drex radioed the rest of the gang. They all know to come this way.”

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous to go out in such small numbers?” Sam asks. “You’d be better turning around and going back to your base.”

“Only two of you,” Roni responds. “But of course, it’s not such a scary world out here for you, is it, Sam?”

Dean keeps his gun trained on the leader as Sam continues to ask questions she’s thankfully too sure of herself to know better than to answer. “How’d you find us?”

“Nice guy back in Jersey,” she replies. “He was very talkative, once we applied the right pressure.”

Sam seizes toward her on instinct, only stops when the gang all point their guns at Dean. “You didn’t—”

“Calm down, kid,” Roni says, rolling her eyes. “We didn’t hurt him or his little family, just threatened to. You ruined all our fun, healing all the lizards everywhere you go. There’s nothing to kill when we’re trailing you. I don’t know how you put up with it, Dean. Someone who likes the hunt as much as you do.”

“Don’t have to be infected to be a monster,” Dean tells her, making sure his threat is clear in his words. “I find plenty that needs killing and I always get the job done.”

Roni huffs a laugh. “Enough foreplay. You know what we want. Sam can come quietly and we’ll even keep you alive and bring you along for him. Or, and this would be a big disappointment for me personally, but we could just blow your pretty little face off, you’re not any use to us.”

“Babe, you should have waited for the rest of your gang,” Dean says. “Six ain’t nearly enough.”

Before the gang has a chance to react, Sam and Dean spring into action. Dean takes down two riders and Sam incapacitates one. He never shoots to kill anymore, and while Dean gets it, he does, it’s pretty frustrating at times like this. It takes longer to be cautious and when the odds are stacked against them three-to-one, the time just doesn’t exist.

Sam’s slower pace means that there are two riders behind him who manage to get their hands on him, and while he’s able to fight one off easily enough, the other grabs at Sam’s coat and comes away with a squirming mass of brown fur hanging by the scruff of its neck.

Sam stops fighting immediately and puts his hands up in surrender when he sees Drex, someone they used to fight alongside, put the mouth of his pistol to the puppy’s head.

“Cute little fella.” Roni smirks and lowers her gun, clearly deciding this means she’s won. “You come with us and nobody else gets hurt, not even your furball.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Dean lunges toward Drex, managing to startle the man enough that he has to change his aim from the dog to Dean and fire in an attempt to protect himself.

Dean dodges the shot for the most part, catches the bullet in the side of his leg, and it hurts like a mother, but he’s had a whole lifetime of worse and manages to land a punch that disorients Drex for the time it takes to snatch the stupid dog out of the bastard’s hand and shoot him.

He hears another shot behind him and, judging by the fact that he doesn’t drop dead immediately after, he feels pretty safe assuming that was Sam putting down the last of the goons. Which only leaves Roni, screaming profanities.

Dean rights himself and takes aim, and she holds her hands up in surrender. “You don’t have to kill me. Think of all the good times we had together.”

“When the rest of your gang gets here,” Dean tells her, “they’re going to see what happens to people who try to separate me and my brother.”

He squeezes the trigger and the shot is true. Roni gets a nice new hole in the middle of her forehead and drops, right next to the two bikers Sam brought down without killing, who are both trying to crawl to their bikes.

“Who is that, Desi?” Dean asks, kicking the person closest to him over onto their back. “And this other one I don’t think I recognize. Should we take the helmets off and get a peek?”

“Leave them,” Sam says, taking Atom from Dean and pressing the dog to his cheek, obviously relieved to have her back safe. “We need to keep moving.”

“Yeah, alright.” Dean gives the guy one last parting kick in the stomach as he inclines his head towards the bikes. “Wanna go in style?”

“Too loud,” Sam says. “Easier to track us.”

“We’ll make it farther before they’re onto us,” Dean points out. “If they’re even stupid enough to keep on this once they see what we did to their leader.”

“Coin toss on whether that makes them back off or just gives them a thirst for revenge.”

“We won’t come after you,” Desi says from the ground, voice obviously pained. “We didn’t want to, I swear, it was all Roni. I liked you guys!”

“Hey, Sam, how much do you trust the promises of someone who just tried to kill you?”

“Not a whole lot,” Sam admits. They resume walking down the road and only once they’re far out of earshot, Sam says, “We’re going to have to take the long way. Starting with the next exit. If they decide to come after us, they’re going to have the highways covered.”

“Aren’t that many of them,” Dean reminds him. “Probably much fewer, considering how they deal with their infected.”

Sam shudders as he tucks Atom back into his coat, then glances at Dean’s leg. “I cannot believe you risked your life like that. But thanks for saving her.”

“Better than doing it for a car part,” Dean mutters. “Anyway, I wasn’t really risking anything. Drex’s aim was always for shit.”

“I can’t believe we used to live with those people,” Sam says, shaking his head. “What a bunch of psychos.”

“They were killing zombies,” Dean says, raising one hand and then the other, “we were killing zombies. It made sense.”

“Yeah, but we weren’t doing it _for fun_ ,” Sam argues.

Dean looks away a little guilty, because Roni wasn’t completely wrong about him, not if he’s being honest with himself. He’s always enjoyed the hunt. “Why didn’t seem to matter all that much before there was an alternative.”

Back when this was all new, Sam and Dean had found the Hive just weeks after it formed, and yeah, they were a little brutal, but everyone was newly traumatized. Zombies running around was old hat for him and Sam. Not so much for the former civilians who suddenly had to either kill or be killed. It was easy to fit in with them, at least for Dean. Sam always asked too many questions, bristled up against orders, even though they had both risen pretty quickly to the top of the ranks. It was like watching him and Dad bicker all over again, only Dad at least had some recognizable authority that Sam would occasionally defer to.

Truth be told, Roni already couldn’t stand him before Sam’s first lizard bite gave her the excuse she needed to turn him out. It took her telling Dean he could stay _if he neutralized his brother_ for him to realize that Sam was right about her all along. Sam fled the base before they could put him down, and Dean went with him. They were both supposed to die.

When the Hive learned _why_ Sam was still alive, Roni extended a welcome back that came with handcuffs and machine gun-wielding guards. It took a week and a half to escape. Her plan had been to use Sam not to help save lizards but as a recruiting tool, so she could offer immunity only to those who followed her, and anyone else infected would be dealt with more permanently.

She was the first of many to try to use Sam’s abilities for her own agenda, and the only one who briefly succeeded. Dean won’t pretend he regrets the way today’s confrontation ended.

“I didn’t want to fight them,” Sam says after a long silence. “I would have gone quietly.”

“I know, Sam,” Dean replies. “But it was self-defense. They would have killed me if I hadn’t—”

“That’s why,” Sam interrupts. “It’s not because…look, I get it. Killing isn’t always avoidable, even when it’s people. And they were monsters. I don’t care about them. They would have killed you. I’m paralyzed all the time. Every time we’re in a situation like that, all I can think is that you could _die_.”

“Dude, that’s our whole lives,” Dean says, laughing at how unfunny it all is. “You never let that slow you down before.”

“I’m scared I can’t.” He gestures at his shoulder, where under all those layers there’s a bullet wound from a gun with no bullets. “I get that it’s not easy for you, watching me get mobbed by lizards all the time, but I would trade with you in a second. I’m so fucking terrified that you’ll die and I _can’t_.”

“Can’t what?” Dean asks, thrown by how upset Sam is all of a sudden. “Sammy, what are you on about?”

“I don’t know if I can die,” his brother tells him. “Remember…after I got bit, when we were trying to understand how this all worked. And we tested you?” Dean nods and Sam continues, “I thought you would be the same as me. I thought it would prove this stupid theory that we’re dead and this is Heaven and then we could just stop worrying, because we’d already be dead. But you did get infected. You can’t cure anybody. It’s just me. I should have died from these bites so many times over and I haven’t.”

“But that’s just because Chuck was immune,” Dean reminds him. “You can still die doing some other dumb shit. You can trip and fall on your giant head and that’ll be the end of that.”

“How do you know?” Sam asks. “I haven’t tried dying any other way. All we have is proof of what can’t kill me. I’m not aging, you are. What if you die someday and I’m stuck here. Like this. Without you, without anybody. Dean, you can’t risk yourself. Please. You have to promise me you won’t do things like that anymore.”

“I can’t promise you I won’t die, Sam,” he replies. “That’s nutty.”

“This isn’t funny,” Sam snaps.

“Nothing’s funny.” Dean throws his arms out to the side. “Everyone we know is dead. We had to ditch the bunker because people kept breaking in to try to kidnap you. There’s elementary teachers running around covered in scales trying to eat people. I get it, Sam. Shit’s bleak. What do you want me to tell you?”

Sam frowns and starts walking faster, out of step with Dean. “Come on. We have to take this exit.”

_______________________________________________________________

They manage to find a decent set-up for the night as the sky starts changing color, a place called the Sunrise Motel that looks so much like the kind of establishment they grew up frequenting that Dean is racking his mind trying to remember if they’ve stayed here Before.

He and Sam choose a room to drop their shit in and Sam wraps the cut on Dean’s thigh where Drex’s bullet grazed him. Then they go out into the courtyard to enjoy dinner under what’s left of the sun’s light.

They end up huddled next to the motel’s sign, Dean enjoying a can of beans and Sam spreading peanut butter on a pack of crackers. For a moment, he wishes he knew where to find a banana and some actual bread, maybe Sam would forgive him for not promising he would never die if he made him one of those gross sandwiches he loves so much.

As they settle down for their meal, Dean has a chuckle at the fact that nothing the sign looming above them is advertising exists anymore: free Wi-Fi, color TV, A/C. The pool is still there, but after months of neglect, it looks more like the home of a swamp creature than a refreshing place to swim. He tries pointing it out to Sam, but Sam doesn’t say anything.

In fact, Sam hasn’t said much since they got off the road, just grunts or two-word replies whenever there was a question that needed answering. Dean’s not sure what he did to piss his brother off so much. He gives up on conversation and eats his beans.

Between crackers, Sam pauses to help Atom out with a can of wet dog food, because apparently she’s old enough to not need her mother’s milk anymore, but too young to eat without Sam dipping his fingers and letting the puppy lick it off. It’s pretty gross as far as Dean is concerned, but after fifteen minutes or so, Sam is smiling as he watches Atom sniff at the grass growing through the cement a few feet away, and at least that beats him sulking.

Dean has pretty much accepted that Sam is done with him for the night, so it’s even more out of the blue than it would already have been when Sam says, “I stopped Him as soon as I could.”

“Oh, okay,” Dean replies, as if he’s carrying on a conversation they were already having. He waits a beat and then says, “Stopped who?”

“God,” Sam answers. “I swear, I was trying. I wasn’t getting His power fast enough. He was using so much of it trying to end everyone, that’s the only reason I was finally stronger. I couldn’t have stopped Him a second faster than I did.”

Dean sets his empty can down on the bed of weeds they’re sitting in and gives his brother a long look. “Sam, I know that.”

Sam shakes his head. “He _started_ with the people we cared about. He was God, for crying out loud, He knew everything about us, every person we ever met, and He started there. I couldn’t have killed Him fast enough to save them.”

“Where’s this coming from?” he asks. “I know you did your best, Sam.”

“The thing is…” Sam picks Atom up and starts rubbing her side. “I thought maybe this was Heaven. It seemed like such a better ending than we were ever gonna get that I couldn’t even believe in it. I mean, we’re both still here, the world is still here. We get to hunt. We hardly ever see anyone else. But to you, it’s the opposite. We failed. The world did end. And we were supposed to save it. So, I don’t know what I could have done better. I wish I had been good enough to save everybody, but I thought it could maybe be enough that He didn’t get to end everything.”

“Of course you did enough, Sammy,” Dean says. “We both did everything we could. And those people we lost, they went out like soldiers. It’s not perfect but it’s definitely enough.”

Sam shakes his head. “You don’t have to placate me. You’re allowed to be miserable.”

“I’m not the one who wanted all the things He destroyed,” Dean points out. “You are. I’m only pissed you don’t get the life you always fought for, when you saved everyone. It was always your job to save the world. My job was to save you. If everyone else on the goddamn planet had died and you were the only one left at the end of it, I still wouldn’t have failed.”

“That’s Dad’s crap,” Sam replies, clearly annoyed.

“No.” Dean says it crisply enough that it forces Sam to really look at him, to really listen. “I stowed my issues with Dad years ago, okay? I know what he said and did that was full of crap and I know what wasn’t. I can tell that for myself, so don’t try to take that away from me. You were my job, Sam. I was supposed to get you to the end and let you live the life you wanted. I just wish that life was still out there for you instead of this one.”

“You don’t know what kind of life I want,” says Sam. “From the very first, you never understood what I wanted, not really.”

“That a fact?” Dean asks.

“Yeah.” He sighs and looks over at Dean almost like he’s sorry. “But that’s not your fault. I always made for damn sure you wouldn’t know.”

“Well, then tell me,” Dean says. “We still have time to try to get there.”

Sam shakes his head. “If you knew why I left, I’m afraid you’d wish I’d stayed gone. I couldn’t live with that.”

He rises to his feet then, tucking Atom under one arm and brushing grass stains off his pants with his free hand as he walks toward the motel. Dean watches him go and stays where he is, because he has a feeling Sam wants to be alone right now, and he thinks maybe he could use a few minutes to think himself.

_______________________________________________________________

By the time he gets to the room, it’s pretty dark. Sam has lit a few Virgin Mary prayer candles they found in that gas station yesterday and set them up around the room. He’s sitting up in one of the beds watching Atom snuffling as she sleeps in a little towel-lined cardboard box Sam put down in the space between the two beds.

Dean looks at Sam, who is wearing long pajama bottoms and no shirt, and immediately tears his eyes away, trying to find something more appropriate to stare at in the dimly lit room.

“I’m pretty repulsive, aren’t I?” Sam asks, misinterpreting Dean’s reaction. “All the bite marks. It’s just so hot in here. I can put a shirt on.”

“You’re not—” Dean shuts his mouth and heads for the bathroom. “What do I care what you look like?”

He pisses and brushes his teeth, changing into a loose t shirt and boxers before going back out into the room. Sam is exactly where Dean left him, sitting up with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at nothing in particular.

“Thought you’d be asleep by now,” he says.

“Can’t,” Sam replies.

Dean hesitates as he approaches the empty bed and asks, “Nightmares?”

After a long moment, Sam nods. It’s not unusual. Sam spent most of Chuck’s last year reliving visions of twisted versions of the two of them murdering each other. Dean never really understood just how messed up Sam was by whatever happened in Broward County back before he went to Hell until he had to watch Sam go through another version of it in real time. The dreams got so bad that Sam stopped sleeping altogether for a few months, and they only ever found one thing that helped.

“Do you want me to…?” Dean points awkwardly to Sam’s bed and Sam glances over to the empty side.

He sighs, sounding relieved but looking ashamed. “Would you?”

Dean lets go of the blankets he had been pushing aside on his own bed and moves around to the empty side of Sam’s, climbing in next to his brother cautiously, as if he’s approaching a scared animal. “It’s okay to need this, Sam.”

Sam finally relaxes down into the bed and Dean wraps an arm around him, exactly like he used to when Sam was a kid. It was easier back then. Sam’s too big to contain now. Back when he was small, it felt possible to shield him from every bad thing that could take him away. Nowadays, it’s more about trying to stay one step ahead.

“Just tonight, I swear,” Sam promises. “After that pack the other day in Jersey and seeing those people again today. I’m just messed up right now. I’ll be normal again tomorrow.”

“Shh,” Dean whispers, soothing his brother’s hair back and pressing his chin to Sam’s shoulder. “I’ve got you, Sammy. Just sleep.”

_______________________________________________________________

The next morning, Sam is still asleep when the sun slides in through the blinds and shines into Dean’s eyes. He breathes a little easier as he wakes, reassured that Sam managed to relax a bit after all.

He can’t help reaching out, tracing his fingers along the edges of a bite mark, and immediately regrets it when the touch makes Sam stir awake under him. Dean tries to pull his hand back, but Sam catches him.

“Morbid fascination?” Sam asks.

Dean shakes his head. “You’re not repulsive, Sam.”

“Something else, then.” Sam studies Dean’s face, which must look so caught out that he might as well have his hand stuck in a cookie jar. “Why else would you touch me?”

Sam doesn’t move for a long time. Doesn’t let go of Dean’s hand for so long that finally Dean asks, “What do you want from me?”

“I think you know,” Sam says. He laughs, and it’s a shocking noise in the quiet morning, but it does seem to break something fragile between them. “Maybe you’ve always known. Maybe I was kidding myself all these years, telling myself you didn’t understand.”

Dean doesn’t respond, just sits up so that Sam is directly under him and when Sam lets go of his hand, he doesn’t use it to stop Sam from reaching up, cupping his cheek.

“One day, one of us is going to have to say it,” Sam whispers. “We’re getting old here, waiting for it to be said.”

“It can’t be me,” Dean tells him, thinking about how Sam was his kid once, how he was supposed to keep his brother safe and raise him to long for something better than this. Apparently, he failed on both counts, not just the first.

“No, I think that’s right,” Sam agrees. “It has to be me. But you can’t hate me if I’m guessing wrong.”

Sam leans up then, pressing his lips against Dean’s for just a few moments, long enough that it can’t be misinterpreted, but briefly enough to spare Dean if it’s not welcome. Dean wishes it had lasted longer.

“Was that okay?” Sam asks. “You don’t have to want this.”

Dean laughs then, can’t help it. What Sam just said is absurd. He doesn’t know all the lengths Dean went to, once upon a time while Sam was off studying for midterms at college, trying not to want this. Sam doesn’t know how many sprites and santeras and hoodoo priestesses Dean robbed and bribed and sweet-talked trying to find some potion or spell, anything that could free him from wanting this. Not one of them had anything strong enough. The itch always came back after a few days.

The only thing he ever found that might have worked was a memory curse, a way to forget Sam altogether, because that was the only way to stop aching for him. Hell, who knows, the ache probably still would have been there, Dean just wouldn’t have known what it was for. Anyway, he can never be sure, because he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Couldn’t let Sammy go completely, even for both of their good. He was still in New Orleans trying to talk himself into it when Dad left him an EMF-ridden voice message and a cold trail to California.

All Dean wants, all he has ever wanted, is to be so full of his brother he can’t remember how empty it felt to be apart from him.

That’s not something Dean can say, though. What Dean says is, “Fuck me.”

Sam jumps into action as soon as the words are out. He throws his arms around Dean’s neck and kisses him again, but this time he goes deep and lingers, his teeth catching on Dean’s lips until Dean opens to him. He pushes both hands up the back of Dean’s shirt, fingers playing along his spine, until he has it raked up enough to pull it off with only a brief interruption to their kisses.

Neither of them needs much concentration to get the rest of their clothes off. Dean’s boxers are easily shoved down to his ankles and when he reaches past the elastic of his brother’s pajama pants, he finds that Sam’s got no underwear on under, and his cock is hot and hard and ready to go.

“I don’t think I can fuck you,” Sam tells him. “Can’t last.”

Dean laughs as he begins to stroke Sam’s dick and he makes a small moaning sound into Dean’s mouth. “That’s embarrassing, little brother.”

When Dean twists his hand on the head of Sam’s cock, he says, “You can’t imagine how long I’ve needed this. How hot you are.”

“I am pretty hot,” Dean jokes, kissing Sam again as he keeps working him. “Sammy, does it feel good?”

Sam is blushing bright pink as he thrusts up into Dean’s palm, and he wasn’t joking. He’s close already. It’s gotta be the single most beautiful thing Dean’s ever been responsible for in his life as Sam bites his bottom lip and nods.

“I still want you in me,” Dean whispers. “I’m gonna take care of you.”

Dean keeps his grip on the base of Sam’s dick as he repositions himself between his brother’s legs and goes down on Sam, trying to swallow as much of his cock as possible. Sam’s got a lot of cock, though, and it’s been a good, long time since Dean gave another guy head, so he doesn’t get as much as he’d like and he has to pull back to keep himself from gagging before he finds a good rhythm.

It doesn’t seem to matter. Sam is saying his name over and over like he’s regressed back to the point when it was the only word he knew. Sam is making it sound like Dean’s giving him the blowjob of a lifetime, and just like he said, he doesn’t last long before he starts to spill down Dean’s throat.

As soon as he swallows Sam’s seed, something shoots through Dean’s body, a warm, almost violently pleasant sensation that causes Dean to lose control and before he’s able to do more than hump the mattress under him, Dean’s orgasm rocks through him and leaves him gasping against his brother’s thigh.

Sam blinks down at him a few times, clearly confused. “Did that just happen? And you said I should be embarrassed?”

“What the hell?” Dean asks, crawling up the bed so that he’s on level with Sam again. He wipes his fingers on his chin, gathering what’s left of Sam’s climax to inspect it. There’s not a lot left, but what’s there doesn’t look any different than regular jizz. He sniffs it. Smells fine. “Dude, I think you have magical God spunk.”

“Please never say those words to me again,” Sam replies.

“Seriously, it made me shoot!” Dean grins at the absurdity of what just happened, feeling a lightness he hasn’t experienced in decades, an easiness in his bones that is completely opposed to the last year and a half of weary living. “What do you think happens if it goes up my ass? Do you think I’ll stop aging, too? Will I get taller?”

While Dean rolls on the bed, laughing hysterically just because he actually feels like making dumb jokes for a change, Sam covers his face with his hand and says, more to the ceiling than to Dean. “I have been imagining this moment since I was a teenager and this is so not how it was supposed to go.”

“Hey, Sammy, don’t be embarrassed, okay? It’s perfectly natural for a boy your age to go through these changes.”

“No, it isn’t,” says Sam. “And I hate you.”

“You’re right, it’s not.” Dean works to get his laughter under control as he looks over at his brother. “At least we both blew it too fast. Round two will be about redemption.”

“Yeah.” Sam turns onto his side, putting his elbow on the mattress and propping his chin on his palm so he can look at Dean. “I’m gonna fuck you so good you’ll stop talking, hopefully forever.”

Dean grins at him, about to say something annoying, but Atom beats him to it. The dog starts whining on the floor next to them and clawing at the side of the bed as she tries to climb it. Sam reaches down and pulls her up, placing her at their feet, where she curls up cheerfully and starts licking Dean’s toes. Dean makes a face, but secretly even the little potato is kind of cute right now. Sam’s smiling at both of them so big that it’s hard to stay mad at her.

“If there is a Heaven for us,” Dean says. “I hope it’s like this.”

**The End.**


End file.
